A Murmur about a New Kong-an Compilation for Contemporary Life

Many of us are familiar with kong-ans, having faced a teacher in person or over Zoom, and having been presented with the description of a kong-an situation—a mini story. Following each narrative are one or several questions, to which the student is asked to respond. The kong-an, as a teaching tool, has a long tradition in our school and in many lineages of Zen. There are numerous compilations of kong-ans, such as the Blue Cliff Record and The Whole World Is a Single Flower. 

Three of our school’s teachers have been meeting over Zoom for about two years to create a new compilation of 235 kong-ans called A Murmur of Dragons: Zen Wisdom for Contemporary Life. One of their aims was to create a collection of kong-ans, some new and some old, that have a sharpened focus on modern situations. 

I recently met over Zoom with Zen Master Hye Mun (Barry Briggs), Timothy Lerch JDPSN, and Knud Rosenmayr JDPSN to talk more about their process of creating this compilation. Below are excerpts from that conversation, along with a few examples from the compilation supplied by the editors. 

Mat: What's this project about? How did it start? What was the process?

Barry: Like our school’s other teachers, the three of us use and treasure The Whole World Is a Single Flower. This project originated partly out of our dharma friendship and a shared spirit of fun. And we just enjoy spending time together. We developed this book, A Murmur of Dragons, to serve as a companion and a complement to The Whole World Is a Single Flower. Of course, any single book couldn’t encompass all possible cases. So we wanted to expand the range of cases that could serve as teaching resources.

Mat: I read in the introduction that you wanted to draw from both ancient and more modern examples of kong-ans. When you selected ancient examples, you selected ones that seemed more relevant to our modern lives. How did you make the selection?  

Knud: Each of us collected stories that we found interesting. And then we went through them and looked at them from this angle and from that angle. It was a lot of fun to look at these cases from different angles and see what comes up. There isn’t really a bad case or a good case. Any case can become a really good case depending on the angle.

Tim: We established some parameters early in the discussion. I collected some of what I call “samadhi kong-ans.” This collection included little, short questions that were more topical, usually not about an old Chinese conversation, but more like someone would be able to relate to in their moment-to-moment life. I could see that some students weren’t ready for a traditional kong-an. For instance, they had questions about difficulties in their lives. I would try and find a kong-an in their life story. That was another source of these nontraditional ways of using kong-an training. When we got together, we were interested in generating kong-ans that would have a broad appeal and allow people to see themselves more readily in the story. We identified some areas of modern culture and ancient culture that we wanted to touch on. We aimed to include kong-ans from underrepresented groups or Zen teachers. We shared and discussed these. 

          Here is an example from A Murmur of Dragons:

Lerch PSN’s Avalokiteshvara’s Gender

Timothy Lerch JDPSN asked a student, “Avalokiteshvara* is depicted as a female in many cultures, but in Korea the bodhisattva is depicted as a male with an elegant mustache. What is the bodhisattva’s true gender?”

1. What is Avalokiteshvara’s true gender?

Commentary: Avalokiteshvara hears the cries of all beings and responds without hesitation. Kwan Seum Bosal!

 * The Bodhisattva of Compassion.

Mat: What were the things that made some of the ancient cases really jump out at you?

Tim: There’s power in a collection that has both ancient and modern examples. It’s perhaps more powerful than if there were only modern ones, or only ancient ones, because they live side by side and can shed light on each other. There’s a great deal of power in having a blend, so that’s what we created. 

Barry: There’s no end to kong-ans. But not every story functions well as a kong-an in our particular teaching style. Many of the older cases from China and Japan are two people having a discussion. The modern cases that we collected, from the West, and from Iran, Middle Eastern countries, and Africa, are poems or stories—not dialogues. In the Asian stories, the “bone” was usually obvious. But in these more untraditional cases, we had to dig harder to find the essence.

Alone or Together

The Burkina Faso people have a saying: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

1. How do you want to go?

Commentary: Bodhidharma and Huike were walking up Few Houses Mountain. Bodhidharma looked back and asked Huike, “Where are we going?” Huike said, “Master, straight ahead—that’s it!” Bodhidharma said, “If that’s the way it is, then we cannot take even one step.”

Mat: So you had a poem or saying, and then a question needed to arise. How did the questions happen?

Knud: Sometimes these questions obviously came to the surface. I really looked at the case from different angles. In some cases, questions are obvious. With other cases, especially if there is not really a dialogue, but a saying, or a poem, that’s not so. 

Mat: You described it as looking at these from different angles. Can you tell me a little bit more about that process? 

Tim: The questions were all developed by the three of us. We have different approaches and different styles, and different things that we wanted to champion, or we wanted to bring out different perspectives. What’s the bone here? How much bone beneath the flesh is available for us to peel back in the form of questions, allowing the student to investigate what might look like an innocent, or even a common, saying or story? And the three of us just naturally would do that for each other in our meetings. That was my favorite thing about it, the challenging each other. It was honest and open. We let our egos, such as they are, rest aside. And we became vulnerable with each other in terms of “What is this kong-an?” How can we respectfully and perhaps gently—but not always gently—hit the kong-an with a question that maybe unveils a fault in the case, or a shortsightedness in what was said. We just played with it, and we tried to be respectful, of each other, of the character in the case, and of our tradition. To find something that really would reveal with sustained interest the bone of the case.

Mat: Was that process sometimes hard for you, the process of identifying the bone?

Barry: At the beginning we put up a document and we just started entering kong-ans. As part of entering the cases we also individually wrote what we thought would be good questions associated with the case. Then, when we reached the conclusion of that process, we started going through all the cases, checking the questions, rewriting the questions, adding new questions, and adding commentaries. And then we went through a second time and revised and changed the questions and commentaries. And then we went through individually. Each of us would go through the collection and say, “What about this?” or “Is this right?” or “This question doesn't seem to work.” It was an iterative process. We’re individual human beings with different views on many things, including some of these cases. I’d look at a question and wouldn’t know the answer. But Knud or Tim would know the answer. And we also disagreed sometimes on what the suitable answer might be. That’s great, too. As teachers and students work with this new collection, I think it’s going to be like our experience with The Whole World Is a Single Flower, where different teachers may see cases differently. Standardization would be the death of our teaching tradition and, fortunately, I don’t think we’re in danger of that. My hope is that everyone who works with this new collection will be challenged and puzzled by it and also, perhaps they’ll have some insight and revelation from working with one of these cases.

Knud: I felt like it was a creative process. We were playing with it. So sometimes we would take the whole case apart. We would just write lots of questions and eventually concur. It was like playing around. It didn’t feel like work.

Tim: For me, the commentaries were the most fun part. We generally got to these last, and we would have possible commentaries that we would generate in the moment. I love to work with other people and take bits of this and that, so everybody feels like their voice is included, cobbling it together into something that we all find satisfying. We didn’t always accomplish that. I had to listen carefully, because sometimes Knud would have a different twist on the language. I didn’t want to just throw that out. I wanted to listen because there was the possibility of something unique appearing. Barry and I have been talking and bumping heads, and having fun with language, for many years, and we have a playfulness, but Knud’s style was a little new for me, so I had to honor it and listen closely to it. That was a great challenge, and I think yielded some wonderful and unique spins on things to capture Knud’s thoughts. I enjoyed that part very much.

Barry: Our process increased my respect for the work putting together The Whole World Is a Single Flower. Zen Master Seung Sahn’s brilliance just shines through that book, and I don't know how the questions and commentaries came to him. And kudos to the editors of that masterwork. I wasn’t practicing in the school in those days. But putting together A Murmur of Dragons was humbling in the face of The Whole World Is a Single Flower.

Mat: Sometimes there would be disagreement. What did that look like? 

Tim: Could you say that again in another way? So, we can really get to the bottom of what you’re trying to ask us.

Mat: I want to get a sense of the process here. And . . .

Tim: That is it! . . . You just got a demonstration of the process. I would say, “I’m not disagreeing with you. Or maybe I am. But I’m even suspicious of my own tendency to disagree. But let’s try. Let’s stick with it. Give me more. Let’s flesh it out. What are you thinking, or what are you not thinking. What’s bugging you about this? What’s the flavor?” And everybody did that. That was the unspoken agreement that we came to as we continued working. And sometimes you just say, “I don't have a dog in this fight.” 

Barry: There’s an example of this in the cases we sent you.

Danxia Encounters Ling Zhao

One day Zen Master Danxia Tianran came to visit Layman Pang. When he reached the gate he saw the Layman’s daughter, Ling Zhao, carrying a basket of greens.

“Is the Layman here?” asked Danxia. Ling Zhao put down the basket of greens, politely folded her arms and stood still.

“Is the Layman here?” asked Danxia again. Ling Zhao picked up the basket and walked away. Danxia then left.

When the Layman returned, his daughter told him of the conversation. The Layman asked, “Is Danxia here?” Ling Zhao said, “He’s gone.” “Red earth painted with milk,” remarked the Layman.

1. Is the Layman here?

2. If you were Danxia and Ling Zhao put down her basket and stood with folded arms, what could you do?

3. Ling Zhao picked up her basket and walked away. What does this mean?

4. What is the meaning of “Red earth painted with milk?”

Commentary: You can dance with different partners, but the music always remains the same.

Barry: In this collection, we particularly wanted named women to be featured in a lot of the cases. Actual human beings. The case above is well known. We looked at this case, and we had to say to ourselves, what is going on here? This master comes to see Layman Pang, and he has this interaction with Ling Zhao, the daughter, instead. What is she saying to him and what is he saying to her? And then the Layman returns, and she reports on the interaction, and the Layman comments, “Red earth painted with milk.” What is going on here? We spent a lot of time with this. I remember trying to penetrate the dynamics of the interaction. What’s going on in each of these short sentences? It was really fun. I think we all understood it the same way, but it wasn’t obvious at the beginning—at least, not to me. 

Mat: I wish I was a fly on the wall for some of your discussions. I guess for many of us who aren’t Ji Do Poep Sas or Zen Masters, and for folks new to Zen, there can be a level of anxiety with kong-ans, especially when being faced with a new teacher. What would be some guidance for folks that have anxiety about kong-ans?

Knud: Having anxiety about kong-ans and all the karma coming up from trying to pass is common for a lot of people. It can feel like a test. But that’s not it. I usually tell people that anything that they feel is OK, and that they can bring it in. They can bring in anxiety. Everything can be in the room. If anxiety is there, it’s fine. If no anxiety is there, that is also fine. Just bring everything in. Don’t hold back, and let’s look at it freshly, and just start from there.

Tim: Maybe someone has a lot of anxiety because they’re coming to see Barry and they’ve never met him before. Maybe they’ve heard he's a real rascal. Then they sit down, and somehow Barry, in his wisdom and his ability, manages to ease their mind a little bit. That’s already teaching about something that’s true. Buddhism teaches that everything’s coming and going, and that it’s all fluid. One thing doesn’t have to be concrete, and something that was uncomfortable can change into something comfortable or vice versa. All of that unfolds inside the interview room. Both participants are alive in the moment—not just going through the motions, but really alive in the moment. I was so nervous! Then I sat down, and it was so easy. There’s teaching in there. It didn’t have anything to do with any Buddhist words. It’s just what it’s all pointing to, just before you get to any questions about an old Chinese guy, or a modern person. That’s one reason I am excited to see how this book unfolds, because it’s not burdened with preconceived right or wrong answers.

Barry: The teacher is looking for an answer and that’s sort of the setup we have. In our teaching tradition we have gates, and we’re looking for answers to the gates. And if you answer enough gates you can get promoted, maybe. That's sort of the frame that we’ve put around it. We recently had an interesting conversation. I wondered if we should pick out ten cases and call them “The Gates of a Murmur of Dragons,” and that idea rapidly got shot down. And I’m glad that it got shot down, because we don’t need more benchmarks and milestones for people to aspire to. We really don’t. 

There’s a case in the Zhaozhou (Joju) section where a nun comes to Zhaozhou and says, “Sir, what is the deeply secret mind?” Presumably she’s asking about awakening, although it’s not certain; that’s the language and translation we have. Zhaozhou doesn’t answer with words. Instead, he reaches over and takes her hand. Well, of course, monks and nuns aren’t supposed to touch. But he takes her hand, and you can hear the surprise in her response. She says, “You still have that?” Perhaps she means, “You’re an old man, I’m really kind of surprised.” And then Zhaozhou says, “You’re the one who has it.” In that dialogue you can hear her discomfort; in fact she tries to blame him. She’s just not willing to be with her own discomfort. Zhaozhou doesn’t bite. He says, no, you're the one who has it. I think it’s an interesting kong-an on its own, but it also captures something about the interview process. You come in and the teacher presents a question. Then we get to see ourselves. We may not want to do that. Perhaps we’re not able to see it at that particular moment. But that’s the gift of the interview. In my own experience, it’s actually not about the answers. It took me a long time to see this. It’s really about how I hold myself back. Where am I not willing to go? Where am I hindered? Where is an obstacle in my own life? And the interview just puts me up against that stuff. I get to experience it, and it doesn't feel good, and I don't like it. But somehow I stuck around for thirty-five years. So, there's something in it. I tried to turn away at one point, but that didn’t work either. That’s the gift of these collections. Hopefully people will find a similar gift in A Murmur of Dragons. We get to discover who we actually are through engaging with these cases. Whether they’re modern or ancient doesn't matter. Confronting these situations may not feel good. We may have anxiety. We may feel resentment or anger or humiliation. Wonderful!

Mat: I have one last question. You ended up with 235 kong-ans in the book. Is there one for each of you that you would point to that really resonated for you? And please don't give me any kind of Zen-crap answer here about no good or no bad. There must be one. I think this could create a fun engagement for readers of the book, like a treasure hunt: “Where is that one Barry liked?”

Tim: I like playing with words. I like the Yogi Berra series. We used Yogi Berra in the commentaries as well. I don't have a particular favorite, but I really enjoyed working the Yogi Berra quotes into kong-ans. 

Knud: For me it’s hard to pick out one but I like the one from Alice in Wonderland.

Changing, Changing, Changing

“Who are YOU?” said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation.

Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, sir, just at present. At least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

1. Who are YOU?

2. When you wake up in the morning, how do you know who you are?

3. How have you changed since you got up this morning?

Everything always changing, changing, changing. —Zen Master Seung Sahn

Barry: I’d be hard pressed to pick a particular kong-an, but one of the things that I’m glad we were able to do with A Murmur of Dragons is to have quite a lot of stories involving Zhaozhou (Joju) and his interactions with strong women. One example involves a woman sending a message to Zhaozhou, saying, “Sir, would you please chant the entire collection of Buddhist sutras?” When Zhaozhou got the message, he stepped down and walked around his chair one time, and said, “I finished chanting the collection of Buddhist sutras.” The messenger went back to the woman and told her what had happened, and she said, “I asked Zhaozhou to chant the complete collection of sutras. Why did he only chant half of them?” 

The book has quite a few Zhaozhou cases, and we edited some of them a little to bring forward a point. Zhaozhou didn’t start teaching until he was eighty years old, but these stories are so energetic and so alive—over a thousand years later!

I would like to end with a couple of logistical things. All of the teachers in the school, and all of the Zen centers, will receive printed copies. Practitioners in the school can request a free pdf copy of the book; it’s not available commercially. We’re not making any money from this. It’s really intended as a teaching resource and a practice resource for people within the school. The printing and distribution of the book has been supported by the unbelievable generosity of teachers, and donations are still coming in. We are profoundly grateful.

Tim: If people want to donate to the project, they could do so by contacting any of the authors.

Mat: Thank you all so much for your time. I would like to thank the three of you for meeting with me and for your creation of A Murmur of Dragons. I’m really excited about it and the treasure hunt ahead.